Answer Questions

• Kumar Venkat ExternalReference from custom ContentImporter

  I'm writing a custom Importer in which I have a number of references to textures. It seems I must reference the built files (xnb files) in my ContentWriter; how can I build the textures in the import-stage of the pipeline (in ContentImporter.Import()), and how do I get a reference to the built files Aha, but how do I create the ExternalReference<> It complaints that... Building content threw ArgumentException: External reference "F:\dev\Lidgren\XNA\Lidgren.Xna.Render\RenderTestApp\Content\Skybox\0001" is not a compiled .xnb file. ... I assume I could use context.BuildAsset<>() but i'd prefer not to hardcode the processor used into this processor - i'd rather just reference the ...Show All

• spanky4_3 Problem with DirectX and Visual Studio 2k5

  Hey,    I've noticed something very wierd. I am using Visual Studio 2k5 for sometime but I've never tried to complile my previous Direct3D relelated projects on this release of Visual Studio, maybe because it never occured because the machine that I was developing them had 2k3. Now for the Problem if you create a Win32 default application with MFC support (or not) that you try to write the following stuff you get linker errors and sometimes complier errors. I've never had them before and I don't know why they are occur. I checked for the Project Properties, altered some stuff (such the use of precompiled headers etc with no luck :S). The DirectX samples compile fine but I don't know the cause of the pr ...Show All

• JayDiscount Refrences and book advice

  Hi all, I was wondering if anyone had some good advice on books/types of books to pick up for this development. I do not know C# but I have been programming C++, etc for many years so I am not a beginner. Would your advice be to get a book one visual C#, or just C#, or something along those lines I would also assume I need a book on direct X programming I just want to make sure I am heading myself in the correct direction before picking up some books. Thanks a ton and I apprecitae the help! There's tons of resources on the internet on C# development so you might want to save money on that. Google "learn C#". As for DirectX anything you buy is going to be outdated as the XNA Framework will b ...Show All

• JoshKorn How to make SpaceWar work with the keayboard?

  Can someone tell me how to make the spacewar example work with the keyboard what line of code i have to modify what i've to write thanks for replying Please search the forum before posting - this is already in another thread. http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx PostID=682463 ...Show All

• Darren M. Bork text mixed with 3d

  thought id ask another question while im at it. i want to display text on the hud of my 3d engine. i did some searching and came across some of the text components out there and chose the nuclex.fonts componenet (very good imo). this works fine on its own or with other 2d objects (eg. sprites) but if i render any 3d objects, all the 3d objects have z buffer issues. i noticed this problem when i first introduced sprites into my engine and it was fixed via the spritebatch.begin methods savestatemode parameter. however, this functionality doesnt exist with the nuclex.fonts package, so my 3d objects are all screwed again. is there another option to prevent this, or can someone tell me how to manually save my renderstate and restore it after re ...Show All

• akilhoffer26386 No templates? help please

  Hi! I'm extremely new to this, and have little to no experience in these type of things. I installed Microsoft Visual C# Express Edition and registered it. I installed Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express. I installed Microsoft DirectX SDK October. Everything seems fine.... I tried to follow a tutorial on XNASpot.com. Everytime I click "New Project", I get an error. "No Visual Studio template found. See the application log in the Event Viewer for more details." Then, a blank window labeled "New Project" opens, and reads Templates: There is nothing here, no templates to select from. I've tried uninstalling, reinstalling, repairing....I cannot figure it out. Please ...Show All

• jmcdonaldtucson Creating a GUI builder in visual studio

  I'm curious as to #1 if it's possible and #2 how to get started building a GUI creator where you can drag and drop gui controls in 'design time' to create code files or a form of XML How do I tap into vs.net to create my own design time/code time pages The GUI controls wouldn't be .net controls, but controls that inherit from a custom gui control class and so on. Thanks, Jonathon Jonathon Stevens wrote: Before you guys didn't have a designer for GUI, you had a designer for the entire game. Sure, that was the "main screen" GUI, but I'm not talking on that level. I want to simply create a plugin (or whatever it would be called) for visual studio so that I can go in and get a de ...Show All

• sureshsundar007 setting IsMouseVisible to true improves performance

  Does anyone else notice that setting the IsMouseVisible to true improves performance Whenever i move my mouse and IsMouseVisible is set to false, my framerate decreases significantly Any thoughts thats exactly what i'm running into, setting mouse to visible seems to help for some strange reason. I've not tried changing that property, but I've had similar issues with the mouse. When running in windowed mode, if the mouse is over the window things run normally, but when moving the mouse outside the window CPU is pegged and frame rate drops significantly. Please file this on connect if you haven't already: http://forums.microsoft.com/MS ...Show All

• JuKiM Need an alpha blend which relates to something in the background

  The subject might seem a bit cryptic. I could not find a short description. I am developing an application where various more or less transparent objects are rendered in such a way that the resulting graphics can be blended with a videosignal, based on the alpha values. The videosignal will allways be located deeper in the scene than the other elements. Therefore I need the final framebuffer alpha to represent how "solid" the other elements are and how much the obscure the videosignal. If I have two surfaces, one in front of the other, and both are 50% opague, then the two together would be 75% opague, and the videosignal should be blended into the scene with a 25% strength. but... if I render those two objects, then the result w ...Show All

• alienated What is the proper way to enable maximum debugging with VB 2005?

  Hi! I have installed VB Express 2005 plus the October 2006 DirectX SDK and have been working on my app. So far everything is working, but I think I may not have configured debugging optimally. Is it possible to get more info from DirectX exceptions - i.e. to have the Visual Studio exception assistant show more than just very simple "InvalidCallException" messages with no further details Can the output window be set to show more info from the DirectX libraries I have already used the DirectX control panel to set the debug versions with maximum output but with no luck. Or am I looking for something that doesn't exist with VB Thanks! Thanks - that was helpful! DebugView shows lots of info. Now, ...Show All

• Poolius How can I pass Cubemap texture into Pixal Shader ?

  Q1: How to contruction a samplerCUBE in   .fx file 1. I import my static cubemap texture into content pipeline  TextureCube mySkybox; 2. In LoadGraphicsContent()   mySkybox = content.Load<TextureCube>("Contents\\skybox");   and now everything is ok. The question is  how can I contruct a samplerCUBE in myEffect.fx file   Q2: How to create a dynamic cubemap  Q3: How can I setup VC# express so that I can have HLSL language higt light when I  edit *.fx   in VC#   LOL, 1024 loads :) Thank you, that was painful, sorry to be slow on the uptake and thanks for your time. All I have to do is get the shad ...Show All

• Yaroslav Ivanov Official List of Features and Limitations of the various Pixel Shader versions?

  Does anyone know of an official list of features and limitations for the different Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader versions (1.1, 2.0, 3.0, etc) I couldn't find anything on the Microsoft or nVidia web sites or on the web. I don't even know for sure who governs these standards. Worth noting that the Xbox360 XNA is using a custom version of SM3.0 so it has some differences (mainly for the better :) ) than the normal PC SM3.0 Deano Wow, XBox 360 supports SM3.0 This is we-just-landed-on-the-moon impact news to me! I've been wanting to do instancing on the xbox. You can't do it like you can on windows because the SetFrequency method is ...Show All

• sfabrigar mesh clone and dispose bug

  this is a strange one... Mesh mesh = Mesh.FromFile( "tiger.x", MeshFlags.SystemMemory, device, out materials ); Mesh newMesh = mesh.Clone( MeshFlags.Managed, mesh.VertexFormat, mesh.Device ); mesh.Dispose(); // Dispose the original newMesh.Disposed == true <--- what -- the new one is now also disposed mesh.UnmanagedComPointer and newMesh.UnmanagedComPointer are not equal what going on here ob. the original and the cloned are referenced somehow... strange indeed found another solution... DON'T use 'mesh.Device'; (ie. the Device from the mesh that is to be copied) this makes it screw up As long as you use a Device from somewhere else it works fine. Every engine would store the Device somewher ...Show All

• Rainadaman Using source codes

  I just downloaded the Quake 3 source code and was wondering how to import it into this program. +1 for Jim :). Talking about making a long story short :). Yeah, I can be long-winded sometimes :P. In other words - you don't. Q3A is a totally different beast than XNA. You'd basically have to rewrite the whole thing more than likely. Not to mention any potential licensing issues between the two projects (I haven't looked at the XNA license for a while, but I'm pretty sure it's not GPL-compatible). This is just my opinion, but if you really want to port Quake 3 into XNA, it would be best to start at the beginning with XNA. Get familiar with XNA via creating your ...Show All

• A.F.B Matrix.Scaling Problem

  Hi I write a simple game with C# 2005 and Directx9. I load a mesh from file in my application, and then use Matrix .Scaling () method to scale up my model like below: device.Transform.World = Matrix .Scaling(10,10,10) I turn on lighting in my application. When I scale up my model, the model become darker. If I scale mesh more, the mesh become darker and darker. What can I do about this problem I don’t want that my mesh become dark when I scale it up. Regards… Don't worry about it, besides we are here to ask and trust me, we all have questions... ;) Kindly, ~a.ka. Andr3w Hey again, I didn't mention that approach ...Show All